School of Applied Knowledge

Caldari State

In one of the items I trade, there are some bizarrely timed price updates.I suspect a bot and I am wondering if this behaviour is worth reporting and how to go about reporting it.

What is happenning is that three different orders are being updated within seconds of each other, each at identical prices.

To give an example, I might have a sell order priced at 500.04 ISK. Three separate orders will then be updated at 499.91 ISK each, within 2 seconds of each other. The timestamps will show for example 89d 59m 26s, 89d 59m 24s and 89d 59m 22s.

I will then undercut the price, and a few minutes later the same orders will again be updated with a new identical price, again within 2 seconds of each other.

Is it possible to update orders so quickly without some type of automatic script ?

Nornir Research

Nornir Empire

If you think it's a bot then definitely report it, you can do this through the support website. Gather as much info as you can, such as the name of the character if possible and the order IDs which you can find by looking at the market data exports created by press Export Market Data at the bottom of the Market window.

Some of those who have replied seem to have missed the point of my post. The issue here is not the fact that he has mulitple orders for the same item. I also use order splitting on occasion - there is clearly a legitimate use for it.

The issue is the speed at which he is able to update separate orders. I'm pretty sure it is physically impossible to update orders within 2 seconds of each other. Try this - create two orders in the same market. Select the first order, change the price, hit enter, then select the second order, update its price to exactly the same price as the first order, hit enter and tell me what the time stamp difference is between the two orders. I can get it to within 5 seconds using a mouse wheel to .01 isk the difference. There is no way I could get anywhere near that speed using a completely new price that would require typing (as is the case with the strange orders I found), and 2 seconds is as far as I can tell impossible for a human, whatever the technique used.

Long story short, if anyone knows how to do updates within less than 5 seconds of each other, I would be interested in knowing your technique. Otherwise, given the fact that the orders are being consitently updated - every single time - within 2-3 seconds of each other leads me to think this is being automated in some way.

CCP have told me they do not necessarily provide feedback on each report, so I may not be able to tell you what action they have taken, if any. If I do get un update, I will post it here.

OK I'm impressed. FYI my client is not as fast as yours and I cannot reproduce what you did, but I cannot discount that it might be possible on a faster rig. In any case you have demonstrated that it is possible to do what I thought was impossible.

Although I still suspect there is a bot at work, simply because of the sheer consistency with which the updates are carried out, I will let CCP know that update pattern is not in itself definitive proof that there a bot at work.

Milk is Love of Killmail

OK I'm impressed. FYI my client is not as fast as yours and I cannot reproduce what you did, but I cannot discount that it might be possible on a faster rig. In any case you have demonstrated that it is possible to do what I thought was impossible.

Although I still suspect there is a bot at work, simply because of the sheer consistency with which the updates are carried out, I will let CCP know that update pattern is not in itself definitive proof that there a bot at work.